I’m not going to be the one to tell her. Why have her notice is my thought. If Mother Nature wants to keep sending us days in the 60’s this time of year, I’ll not break the spell. People are wearing short sleeve shirts or light jackets at the most. I even had my bedroom window open all night so I could smell the fresh air. Today is beautiful with a sunny blue sky and not even a tiny breeze. The leaves still hanging for dear life on the ends of branches aren’t moving. Today is a reprieve. Gracie has been out almost the entire morning. I’ll join her after this as the feeders need filling.

When I went to get the papers from the driveway, it was one of those stand a while and take in the day sort of mornings. I haven’t had one of those since early fall. I did miss the front flowers I used to love looking at every day, but the air was clear and bright, and that’s more than enough for late November.

Buckle shoes were never my favorite when I was a kid. Unlike sneakers, you couldn’t just slide your foot out. You had to unbuckle the shoes first. Also, they were only for church or school so they were tainted by their use. Every Easter my mother bought us girls new shoes with buckles because they were fancy shoes. Buckle shoes, though, had design drawbacks. If a lace on my sneaker broke, I’d tie a knot and use the lace anyway or my mother would buy new laces when the knots got too many. Buckle straps broke, and there was just nothing you could do. I always knew when the strap was getting close as there was process before the break. First, the hole in the strap would get bigger because the shoe fit only one way so I always used the same hole. Pretty soon the area around the hole would start to lose color, then it would bend and finally the hole would give way, and the strap became two pieces, one shorter than the other, and the shoe was useless without the strap. My dad would try to fix it, but nothing ever held. My mother was stuck buying me a new pair. I think she was thrilled when saddle shoes became popular because they lasted the whole school year, and the strap shoes were relegated to Sundays so they lasted much longer. We all now had two good pairs of shoes and a pair of sneakers. We felt rich.